The Deceiver's Heart

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  Wynnow frowned at me. “If this is truly your best, then Loelle dies.” Before I realized what was happening, she pulled out her dagger and threw it at Loelle. With the perfect aim of the Brillians, it pierced Loelle in the stomach.

  “What have you done?” I cried, racing toward Loelle and catching her as she fell to the ground.

  Wynnow followed me. “Maybe you haven’t found your magic because everything is too safe. Heal her.”

  “We’ve tried that! I can’t heal people!”

  “Loelle said she felt your magic working. Maybe you can do something more than heal. She is dying, my lady. You’d better hurry.”

  I knelt beside Loelle, whose eyes were fluttering open and then closed. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Pull out the knife.”

  I gritted my teeth together, grabbed the handle, and said, “This will hurt, I’m so sorry.” I pulled and Loelle’s body stiffened, but she didn’t cry out.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  Loelle’s eyes fluttered again, then closed.

  “Loelle!” I cried, but she didn’t answer. I pressed my fingers against her neck, checking for a pulse. It was there, but wouldn’t be for long.

  “I can’t do anything for her!” I turned back to Wynnow. “Please call for help.”

  “I did. I called for you.” Then Wynnow casually folded her arms and leaned against the door, apparently indifferent to whatever happened next. I cursed, putting my hands over Loelle’s wound to slow the bleeding. I had to think. What would be the next thing to do?

  I didn’t know. The bleeding had to be stopped, but simply pressing my hands here wouldn’t help nearly enough. She needed healing from within.

  And with that singular thought, I shuddered as something emptied from me. I wasn’t sure what it was: Strength? A parcel of my own life? I only knew that I felt weaker than before, and in the same moment, Loelle began breathing easier.

  “Something is happening.” With hopefulness in her voice, Wynnow stepped forward. “Kestra, keep going!”

  I did, not for her, but for Loelle. I concentrated on her injury and offered my strength to close the wounds, to seal every tear. I knew it was working, because the pain of it transferred to me. I felt the knife, the broken tissue, the fierce sting, as if the wound was mine. Everything I gave took something from me. As she became stronger, I weakened.

  “Enough,” Loelle whispered, placing her hands over mine. “Enough, Kestra.”

  “You’re not whole yet.” I tried to keep working but she pushed my hands away from her. “I can do more.”

  “No, you cannot. You must not.” Loelle sat up, though with significant effort. “My lady, I felt your strength pouring into me. If you give too much of yourself, you will die. No more than half, ever.”

  “How do I know what is half?”

  “This is half. Never give more than this.” She put her hand on my cheek and smiled. “So there is an eleventh cluster of magic, one that is yours alone. You are not a healer as I am; you are a giver of life. This is a powerful gift, Kestra. Use it well.”

  I stared at my hands, trying to calm their shaking, cursing my weakness. Loelle was wrong. In my hands, this was not a powerful gift. Not with such a high price for using it. I’d never be capable of helping on a large scale.

  Wynnow walked forward, triumphantly standing over us. “This is wonderful news, and a significant power.” As if this were her achievement.

  I turned to her. “How did you know that would bring out my magic?”

  She only shrugged. “I didn’t.”

  Anger washed through me, giving me enough strength to stand and begin walking off the field, this time determined to get away from her. “I am finished here. Finished with Brillian superiority, your dismissal of all races but your own, your disregard for anything that does not benefit you. I will not fight for you or use magic for you. I’ll be gone by morning.”

  She started to speak, but I pushed open the door and stormed away. Yet as angry as I felt, that wasn’t the problem, not really. I didn’t even make it to my room before I began openly sobbing. I wrapped my arms around myself, consumed with pain, then crouched in a quiet corner of the palace and let the tears fall.

  I had acquired a magic of only marginal significance, and for what? This supposed gift would have little impact in the fight against the Dominion, and to discover it I’d just traded away the thing I valued most.

  In the moment of saving Loelle’s life, I had sealed the end of my relationship with Simon. It was over.

  The battle began much as I’d expected. The condors flew over the forest canopy, but the leaves were far too dense for the riders to set targets with their shoulder cannons.

  Many of the early Ironhearts who entered attempted to do so on their oropods, but they quickly realized their mistake. The forest floor was covered in such heavy brush and thicket, their oropods became tangled and fell, making them easy targets for us from the canopy tracks above.

  We killed or wounded almost half of that first wave of Ironhearts, but those who survived quickly responded, firing disks upward. It was easier for us to hide than it was for them, and in a few cases, the disks fell back to their archers, piercing them. Where the canopy tracks were lower to the ground, if we lay on our stomachs, we could aim the halberd downward and stab a soldier before he knew we were there.

  But our easy victories could not last. After an hour of their side taking heavy losses, the carnoxen were sent in. Their bodies were too low for us to reach with our pole weapons, and from this distance, our disk blades couldn’t pierce their hides. They also trampled the undergrowth, creating easy trails for the next wave of Ironhearts.

  “Now?” Basil asked, looking over at me.

  I nodded, and with a silent gesture to men waiting in key positions around the canopy, a handful of rope ladders quietly descended.

  The Ironhearts returned, angrier than before and apparently with orders to flush us out of the canopy, just as I’d hoped. One of their officers called out that the rebels had made a mistake and he’d found a ladder. I grinned. A mistake had certainly been made, but not by us.

  I gave a whistle that was immediately echoed by our fighters in the distance. The Ironhearts climbed the ladders, certain they would trap us, while we led them deeper into the forest, quietly descending in prearranged locations and waiting to counteract their next order. Basil and I descended together but took up hiding places as far apart as possible while staying in visual range.

  Within minutes, the Dominion officers shouted that they had taken control of the canopy. This was true, though we had taken the pole weapons with us and their swords wouldn’t reach low enough to threaten any of us.

  That hardly made us safe. Plenty of carnoxen and oropods were down here along with the majority of Ironhearts. I heard fighting already breaking out in some areas ahead.

  It was time for the battle to shift again. Basil had assigned one hundred men as fire starters, their first job to burn any rope ladders that came down from above, keeping the Ironhearts overhead trapped. Their second job was to light smoke bombs as needed, ones Harlyn had shown the Halderians how to make from the saltpeter and sugar.

  With the first fires lit, the forest immediately began filling with thick white smoke, rising fast and becoming trapped in the canopy. As the Ironhearts ran for breathable air, they often ran directly off the track, with men following so close behind them that several fell before anyone changed course.

  We weren’t finished. We had also converted some of the saltpeter into gunpowder that exploded at the base of trees, bringing down the entire track and everyone on it.

  “Retreat!” someone called from above.

  “How?” another voice answered. “We’re trapped up here!”

  “Find a way!”

  While I fought below, I ordered our fire starters to stay ahead of the Ironheart retreat, keeping as many as possible in the canopy. The rest of us moved deeper into the forest. The Dominion hadn’t co
me this far yet, granting us a little time to rest.

  I leaned against a tree, uneasy with unused energy that still pulsed with the urge to fight. Meanwhile, Commander Mindall and Harlyn were checking on their soldiers, and Trina was nursing a long cut on her arm. After a quick review of his men, Basil headed toward me, looking cautiously hopeful. I wished he didn’t. There was still little hope for us.

  “Gather the wounded,” one of Basil’s officers ordered. “And bury the dead.”

  “Our dead.” All eyes fell on me and I added, “Not theirs.”

  Basil shifted his weight. “Simon, out of respect …”

  “If we bury everyone, the Dominion returns to an even battleground, any memory of today’s losses a thing of the past. No, I want them to see how many men they lost and wonder if they got any of ours.”

  Basil nodded, then called to his men, “Find a quiet place for our dead. Somewhere they won’t be disturbed.”

  The first wave of battle had gone well, with far more Dominion losses than ours. Still, we had too many fallen fighters, which meant when I saw Commander Mindall walk toward me, my stomach filled with dread. I was scolding myself plenty. I didn’t need his criticism too.

  But he stood beside me, looking back on the white smoke still filtering through the forest and said, “It’s a terrible thing to lead a battle. No matter how it ends, you’ll inevitably spend the rest of your days obsessing over every choice you made, berating yourself for any mistakes you made. Learn from them, then let them go. If you can, then today’s mistakes become tomorrow’s victories. Refusing to move on is simply another mistake.” When I only frowned at him, he clapped a hand on my shoulder and added, “It was a good day for our people.”

  He gave me a respectful nod, then left, yet my mind lingered on his words, that it had been a good day for our people. Not his Halderians. It didn’t bother me that he’d said it that way; it bothered me that I cared.

  The Dominion set up their overnight camp outside the forest, where they could build fires for warmth in the wintry air and cook some hearty food, its mouthwatering scent easily carrying on the wind toward us.

  Forced to make camp among the trees, we did our best to relax within the lingering smoke and haze and within easy sight of the unburied dead. Without enough food to go around, Mindall ordered some of his men to hunt for anything remotely edible, and a few others offered to fish from King’s Lake in a clearing deeper in the woods.

  “A bridge runs over the east end, before it empties into a river,” Basil suggested. “That’ll be your best place to fish.”

  The idea of eating appealed to me, but sleep sounded even better. Trina had built a small fire and I sat beside her and stared at the flames, wondering if the Dominion would wait until morning before attacking again. Hoping so. Every part of my body ached, and I’d begun to notice small injuries that had escaped my attention before. I was beyond exhausted and might’ve fallen asleep until one of our watchmen called, “We have prisoners!”

  Mindall and I stood in time to see Halderian fighters leading two people forward. I recognized Huge first, his arms propping up Gabe as they walked. I gave a shout of happiness and ran toward them.

  “These aren’t prisoners!” I wrapped an arm across Huge’s shoulder, then nodded at Gabe, who was half-bent over, clearly still mending from his injuries. To the fighters, I added, “Release my friends!”

  Trina had joined us by then and helped me lead Gabe toward a bedroll Harlyn laid out. Carefully, we lowered him onto it.

  “Thanks,” Gabe mumbled as Harlyn spread a blanket over his bruised body.

  Huge settled onto a log near the fire and someone passed him a flask of water, which he gratefully accepted, taking a long draw before offering it to Gabe, who also seemed eager for a drink.

  Mindall’s eye passed from Huge to Gabe to me, his expression souring with every turn of his head. “At last the great Corack army has arrived,” he said wryly. “All two of you.”

  “Where is everyone else?” I asked Huge. “And why did you bring Gabe here? He should recover at Lonetree Camp.”

  Huge’s eyes darted from me to Trina, then in a low voice he said, “There is no Lonetree Camp. It’s been destroyed.”

  My heart stopped. “Dominion?”

  When Huge nodded, Trina leaned forward. “What happened to the Coracks who were stationed there?”

  Huge gave her a knowing look but said nothing. Too many other listeners were around.

  “Was Tenger there?” I asked.

  Huge’s eye briefly shifted to Mindall, then he slowly nodded.

  Near me, Gabe mumbled something. I leaned in and asked him to repeat himself, but he only said, “Tell him, Huge.”

  I looked up to Huge for an explanation, but his gaze shifted across the group. I stood and said to Trina, “Keep an eye on Gabe. Huge, come with me.”

  “If he has something important to say, he should say it to all of us,” Mindall said. “I am in command here, after all.”

  “But this is Corack business,” Harlyn said, which earned her a harsh glare from her father. He started to scold her, but I wasn’t around for that. Huge and I had already walked away.

  A small tent had been set up near King’s Lake, which was a long walk, but it was the one place where I knew we’d be alone, especially as the other fighters were waking up to begin morning preparations. Once inside the tent, I folded my arms and squared my body to Huge. “Tell me everything.”

  He took a deep breath. “The Dominion has never known where Lonetree was—that’s what made it such a strong camp. Their soldiers plowed straight through it, emptying it within minutes. Our hope is that most of our people escaped, but we know the Dominion captured quite a few of them.”

  I shifted my weight while I let that sink in. “How could the Dominion have found it?”

  “Gabe knows Dominion technology better than any other Corack, and he has a theory about the necklace that Kestra wore. He believes it might have been some sort of tracker, registering everything Kestra was seeing in that camp. It must have been something like that, because the Dominion breached every security system we had. They knew about the tunnels and how to navigate them. They knew our escape routes, our hiding places. They had to have inside knowledge about what to expect.”

  “Then that necklace was taken from her in the Dominion camp.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “We should’ve gotten to her before they could take it.” No, I should have gotten to her. I should have come.

  “We did get to her by then,” Huge said. “I saw them drag Kestra out from her father’s tent, with the necklace. But it was gone by the time Wynnow rescued her.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Are you saying that Wynnow took the necklace?” Huge shrugged, but I continued, speaking aloud my thoughts as they came to me. “Wynnow wanted Kestra to go to the Blue Caves. If she removed the necklace, she’d force Kestra to go there, to save her life.”

  “But she couldn’t have known that removing the necklace would kill Kestra,” Huge said. “None of us could have sensed its magic.”

  I couldn’t answer that, but I was beginning to piece together the clues. She and Trina had worked closely together back at Lonetree Camp. If Wynnow had wanted to send a message to the Halderians, she might have written that note on Trina’s notepad, especially if she wanted to divert suspicion to Trina. Trina also could have told Wynnow where my mother lived, information she might have passed on to the Dominion. The night Kestra poisoned me, Trina and Gabe were searching for us together. Wynnow was missing for that entire night. She easily could have made contact with the Dominion during that time.

  And when he was attacked, hadn’t Gabe overheard the Ironhearts saying the Corack traitor was female?

  “Where is Kestra now?” The tension in my body came through in the urgency of my voice.

  Huge shrugged. “Tenger would’ve sent her somewhere safe to recover—”

  “With Wynnow.”

  “We’re getting ahead of ourselves,
” Huge said. “This is all speculation. There’s no proof.”

  “No, but there’re plenty of reasons to make sure Kestra isn’t alone with Wynnow. Who knows what might happen?”

  “Simon—” Trina ducked her head through the tent door.

  “I’ve got to find her and pray it’s not too late.”

  “Simon!” Trina said, more firmly. “Listen!”

  I did and heard the first shouts from the Reddengrad guards at watch. The Dominion had returned, and we were out of tricks. We could not expect any Corack reinforcements, and our one hope for success—Kestra arriving with the Olden Blade in hand—probably wouldn’t happen. Not if Wynnow had betrayed us.

  If she had, our battle here was already lost.

  I awoke sometime around midnight, barely able to breathe and with sweat on my palms and throat. I flung my bedcovers aside and stood, trying to orient myself in the darkness. Where were my day clothes?

  It didn’t matter. I collapsed on the floor, wrapping my arms around my legs, hoping simply to breathe again. What I’d just experienced was no ordinary dream. It was a memory, so real that I felt as if I were there again.

  Thanks to the starry ceiling overhead, my eyes gradually adjusted, but I had yet to calm my racing pulse or to collect an even breath.

  I remembered being in the room with Lord Endrick on the day he took my memories. I remembered all of it. The acidic smell of the walls and furniture. The smooth binding cords that had tied me to the chair. Lord Endrick with his scarred gray face close to mine, eagerly anticipating the theft of my memories.

  I remembered everything, and recalling what had been missing before was worse than I had imagined.

  He had ordered me to kill Simon, an order I had later refused. He had instructed me to wear his necklace to spy upon the Coracks; at least it was safe now with Loelle. But he had also assured Sir Henry that even if I failed, he had another spy in place among the Coracks.

  Whoever that was, I needed to warn Captain Tenger. If I didn’t, the spy would find the Olden Blade. He would betray all information about the rebellion to Endrick.